To and From

I. Columbus

I decided to fly in and out of Milwaukee's airport this Christmas; it was my attempt to shave a few dollars off my fare, as well as avoid walking Concource C at O'Hare during the holidays. My folks appreciated it, although the drive was longer...it was "more relaxing".

The more I try and figure out how to be more "chill" about uncomfortable moments in life, the more I see an obstacle course of hoops and mirrors ahead. Making a long story...well, just as long; it's difficult for a person like me, who has always struggled with being either too shy or too aggressive, to determine how to deal with difficult people and just move on. Here were the steps I followed in the Columbus airport ten days ago:

1. Get three hours of sleep before going to the airport
2. Ask the Northwest Airlines employee (politely) why your confirmation # won't work
3. Awkwardly drop your itinerary on the floor (employee picks it up, gives look of disapproval, tells you you are flying out of Midwest Airlines)
4. Employee gives you the strangest, rudest, roll-her-eyes-at-you, snotty smirk and evil eye and says, "Yeah."
4. Flustered, you say, "Don't look at me like that, it's early...people make mistakes!"
5. Experience no response, followed by evil smirk from employee
6. Walk away
7. Consider walking back and A. pulling her hair, B. ask for her name and say you are going to complain to her manager
7. Ponder how she doesn't know what your week has been like or how much sleep you've gotten
8. Ponder how you don't know what her week has been like or how much sleep she's gotten
9. Call a friend to dissuade you from going back and pulling said employee's hair

This is the first time in my life I've ever applied step 8 in my routine.


II. Milwaukee

My hopes of picking up the latest David Sedaris book at some swanky airport book store were dashed by...well, it's Milwaukee. But my disappointment was quickly replaced by a decently sized second-hand book shop right across from the tiny food court. I would have Cinnabon on my way back out, for sure.

With an hour to kill, I strolled leisurely from iasle to iasle, poking at old Life mags and 1950's mystery novels...and saw this.



I opened up to a page and read this passage (followed by a parenthesis);



and flipped back to the inside front cover.




I don't need to bore you with the details, but I really needed to read this passage at that particular moment. It's easy to preach the idea to others and to judge others' missteps when they use circumstances to justify their actions. It's not so easy to apply it to one's self.

There's this book of poetry that sits on my coffee table...it's called Risking Everything; 110 Poems of Love and Revelation.

I've had it for years and it has kind of followed me from relationship to relationship. I'm not talking about the romantic kind, necessarily. I'll flip through to find some words that remind me of someone I know, or know of. Sometimes "risking everything", "love" and "revelation" extend to your friends, aquaintances and colleagues. Although...it took me a long time to understand that.

I think it's difficult to live with the fact that people will never be what we want them to be, act how we want them to act, respond as we'd hoped. It's hard to be okay with that. It's hard to see people for who they are when you expect them to act according to your own standards.

So here, here is my choice for the night and maybe the month, or year...until the thought naturally becomes my own:

I Unpetalled You
By Juan Ramon Jimenez

I unpetalled you, like a rose,
to see your soul,
and I didn't see it.

But everything around
-horizons of lands and of seas-
everything, out to the infinite,
was filled with a fragrance,
enourmous and alive.

-Translated by Stephen Mitchell

Confetti

the wind makes confetti
from orange and gold,
one stem and another
have loosened their hold.

you're one in the line
as the leaves they pour down,
just another parade
on a street in your town.

Out of Order

I went through this phaze at about 25 when I wanted a reason for everything; pouring all of my energy into what a psychic said or what a horoscope said...until life kind of took the reins and kept on revealing the unexpected.

"Out of Order", the sign read on this old game...
the plaster fortune teller; locked behind glass with an unflinching gaze has had her cards in a row for decades and a stash of futures for the price of a quarter.






"So it goes" is the catchphrase in a book by Vonnegut that has popped back into my head as of late. There's a bit of acceptance involved there; I have no say over other peoples' actions or feelings. In turn, I have no reason to believe that any other person or thing has the power to predict my fate. I believe we are all taken care of by something greater than we can ever imagine (the flowers that popped up accidentally in the transplanted pile of dry dirt next to my office last week show me that).

The psychic will pass on, the stars will shift and the fingers of a mechanical fortune teller will chip as her gears wear down and the pre-fabricated fortunes run out. And the unexpected will keep on coming...

Parallels

These colors share a common sidewalk:





I left both of these things unattended in my kitchen two nights ago:




And these things share a common fate:




A couple of years ago when I was down in the dumps my mom gave me some good advice; "Go out and do something that you enjoy." Whether it's taking pictures, doodling on a napkin or walking outside at midnight to look at the moon, I still find comfort in making connections and realizing that the world is far to complex for me to understand and far bigger than me to be measured in absolutes.

I threw up on Friday night and the ordeal involved two shades of green:



Just thought I'd share.

She Might, She Might Not

She might
reproduce
do the dishes
occasionally...
stop at the local liquor store.

And it's time, time, time
And it's time, time, time
And it's time, time, time that you love
And it's time, time, time

I'm listening to Tori Amos' version of Tom Waits' "Time".

I can't concentrate today; I put in my earbuds at the computer to listen to some slow music to calm my nerves. I can't stop thinking about my friend who is in the hospital right now. It's like a light switched on this past Tuesday night when I walked out of those double doors at the James and walked back to my car...to my apartment where my power had been out for two nights. I truly never understood why people would fight to live for anything; why do we try and avoid death? Why...when we don't know in the end exactly what the value of life on this Earth is...do we to cling to it? What do we have to lose by dying?

All I could think on Tuesday and all I can think today is that life can't be measured by the fact that we might die; what do we have to lose by fighting to live? And yes, Bill...if the zombies were coming...I've decided, I would fight them.

Yesterday I stumbled upon an article about a possible cure for Cancer found in a harmless strain of virus related to the common cold. There are people out there working for other peoples' right to live. I now find myself more appreciative than ever and in more admiration than ever of these people. Just as death is a great unknown (in my mind anyway)...in so many ways life is equally uncharted territory that requires an enormous amount of bravery and risk to experience fully.

This time is precious.

Okay, 2008.

As a reminder; I'll reference some words by Lewis Carroll that got this blog rolling...


"I was walking on a hillside, alone, one bright summer day, when suddenly there came into my head one line of verse — one solitary line — 'For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.' I knew not what it meant, then: I know not what it means, now; but I wrote it down: and, sometime afterwards, the rest of the stanza occurred to me, that being its last line: and so by degrees, at odd moments during the next year or two, the rest of the poem pieced itself together, that being its last stanza."

My mother taught me the 23rd Psalm and The Lord's Prayer to recite to myself before sleep. Odd; as we were not church goers nor Christians...I've come to find it necessary to find my own mode of prayer.

She has also mentioned told me from time to time, "You've always had a problem with sequencing". It's true; I tend to count backwards.

I suppose the quote above is my prayer tonight. I'll take the hopeful end of things and keep going.

Best. Email. Ever.

Wow. This. Whole. Word. Followed. By. A. Period. Phenomenon. Has made its way to email advertisements...acceptable copywriting. I'd love to see a version of the old testament where key points are made. With. Periods. Loveit.

Bud Light, Etc.

"Have you noticed this; 'nerd' somehow has become a badge of honor."

This morning I listened to my weekly podcast for This American Life and I felt a certain sense of gratification as Ira Glass continued on about how suddenly, anyone who feels "different" (and by different, he elaborates, means anyone in high school) suddenly qualifies as a nerd these days. Popular kids with a real social circle, who have boyfriends & girlfriends make these claims...and I'm paraphrasing...but he goes on to comment, "That's wrong."

As a biproduct of my former relationship, I backed down with my opinion on this subject a long time ago. Said ex-boyfriend's ex-girlfriend (who, by the way is a lovely, beautiful blonde with a fun and charming personality) once proclaimed in my presence that she was a "dork". This fueled in me a little contempt for the concept at hand. Ira has inspired me to reclaim that contempt.

I just spent the whole weekend at Lollapalooza droning through heavy consumption of Bud Light and indie rockers (and fans) who think it's cool to dress like...nerds. Funny; they were all trying to fit in. God, seriously; I know everyone has problems and inner demons...insecurities and hidden quirks...but...

I remember very clearly a moment in grade school gym class when a group of popular girls proclaimed out loud, "eeeeeeewwww!" when a certain, less (way way less) popular boy's name was called in attendance. That sucked. Dude ate raw Chicken Tonight out of a jar at lunch, wore sweatpants regularly and did the splits on command (in the lunchroom). Dude was not cool. Dude could not cover it up with "irony" and "irreverence".

Okay, now that I've gotten it out of my system I will admit that I've slipped myself with the self-depreciating nerd and dork references. Those words are at this point far beyond their initial function. And I have noticed that (having been to my ten year reunion and after catching up with former classmates in online social forums) people carry a certain nostalgia for those once labeled as (real) nerds. Somehow, the reminiscing involves both acknowledging what made the "nerd" so nerdy AND why that nerd is now awesome and worth reminiscing about. STUH-RAAAANGE.

Maybe it's not such a bad phenomenon? Is it??? Makes me want to vomit a little, but I'll get over it.

May Babies

There's a string of birthdays this month in my family. Dad's is today, followed by cousin Melissa on the 7th, Granny Gene on the 14th, Aunt Betsy on the 15th, Grandma Swanson on the 16th, and my own the next day. One of them is gone and the others I don't see very often.

I was walking out the back door of my apartment last week and noticed Lily of the Valley had sprouted along the back brick wall. It's May's flower and was my Granny Gene's favorite. It's the one plant besides the hearty Hostas that have survived my parents' yard over the years. Today the little white bells are blooming some more and I am shocked that it's almost the middle of the year. Another year...

I wrote this about my dad in college...happy birthday Dad.

I.
It was as Summer should smell to me;
of warm air and engine grease,
old wood and rusted machinery
and the sound of my father hoisting up the shed door.
Rolling on oiled tracks the old plank
bent and cracked
peeling white paint
sending spiders to scatter
back to the shade of a spare tire.

II.
I never had a playhouse, or a treehouse,
but I always had the trees.
It was on these summer days
when the breeze was warm and deep and soaked with green
that kids could play and never grow
too tired or too bored
to run and sweat until the sky burned out.
Hiding in branches, crouching in the bushes,
we made our way through tangled timberlands
and sat in beds of fallen needles,
making playthings of pinecones and rocks.
When you are young and imaginitive
shelter is easy to come by.

III.
Late one year,
I discovered the pines
stripped from the waist
of their branches,
scarred trunks crudely marked, dripping
a patchwork of ugly black tar.
I would have rather watched the trees in a skirt of brittle orange,
break
and fall in time
with heavy snow...
I was angry.

Now, lilies of the valley find sanctuary
in the clearing beneath those pines,
blessing the soil.
Bowing in the shade more generously
thank memories ever would.
Walking the yard with my father years later,
I had forgotten the tar
washed away by years of weather.
We looked at the big white pine,
he reached to touch the blemished bark
with his palm, and yes, there it was!
Patched and healed with time...
It didn't seem so terrible
after all.

Hey Anakin

I remember sitting on my parents' bed around the age of eight...holding the yellow plastic box from our medicine cabinet; it was filled with ointments and utensils. There was a blade; it was a covered scalpel-type tool and I knew I wasn't supposed to put it to my skin...I knew what it was for and what it would do. Still, I was compelled to feel it, see what would happen if sharpness met my flesh. I removed the cap and sliced my finger. I wasn't trying to hurt myself...I just couldn't stop myself from seeing if what I knew could hurt...would.

I had a recurring dream around the same age. There was a monster around my parents' house...I knew it...I knew it was scary too. I would call for it, tempt it with apple juice, "monster...oh, monster....", I remember calling from the garage door. Inevitably the monster would appear and I was terrified. It didn't stop me from luring it out somehow it in the next dream...just to see if the thing I feared would come when I called it.

Was cutting my finger inevitable without putting the blade to my skin?
Was the monster destined to show up at my door without temptation?
It could have gone either way.

I find myself asking these questions twenty years later because my life and dreams seem to be wrapped up in the same patterns. I wrote in a journal once as a young adult that I feel the need to stretch everthing to its breaking point...so I can understand the breadth and depth of any matter.

Someone very dear to me challenged my concept of reality last night. "If you believe x, then x is what is going to happen." That's a very bold statement. Is belief an action...a choice? I suppose it is...and I don't want to go on forever believing in actions that I know will hurt me. If fate should have it that I reach into a box of medical utensils and cut my finger, so be it. If a monster shows up unnanounced at my door, I will meet it. If not...

I think I need to give it a rest and take a chance on the things in life that I don't know.

Pushing Dirt

Attempting to sweep away the cobwebs, organize my life in file-folders...listening to my latest mix CD...sipping on wine this sunday. I love it...THANKS AGAIN FOR THE MUSIC JENNY!!!

Left the house for a grand half-hour and nodded at the new green shoots just off the sidewalk. I love March...just a little relief...just a enough to get us past the next snow, some more cold...pushing dirt...just enough hope.

Been working on updates to lisaragland.com.

I'm pretty much...completely in love with this guy.

I feel lucky. Happy St. Patty's Day!

NO NO NO NO

I call bullshit



I'm sick with some sort of flu but there is only so much sleep one can force themselves into. Since I am bound to inactivity and trying my best to avoid complete boredom, I have resorted to reclining on my couch-bed with the tv remote.

So I'm flip flip flipping during commercials for the E! True Hollywood Story; Donald Trump...and come across a profile on an art dealer. This woman caters to extremely rich people and advises them on adding to/preserving/showcasing their art collections.
Blah blah blah...she visits back rooms of museums to keep up-to-date on the latest pieces of art for sale...blah blah blah...and then I see one of these spin paintings by contemporary artist Damien Hirst. For sale. For $20,000.

No way. If I thought bullshit then...my thoughts were solidified when I read the description of these "spin paintings" posted on the webpage above. It's not that I disagree that each painting is unique...it's just that WHY IS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE INTERESTING? I'd rather have my cousin's 20 year old spin art tee shirt framed and hung on my wall. I found it much more intriguing to watch a clip last year of Bjork making a spin painting while strings attached to her fingers released paint as she played the piano. Maybe just maybe I find that act to illustrate something MORE about action, reaction, experimentation and chance...

Hirst merely pours his paint on to a spinning circular canvas...I am currently looking up more info on the artist...whos name I've heard thrown around since I was in art school;

" Hirst actively seeks to achieve a sense of randomness in his spin paintings (formless splashes of color created by pouring paint onto spinning, circular canvases). The artist explains the source of inspiration for his series of spot paintings: "The aim is to set up a kind of visual humming...they represent the ultimate variety of life...and are random attempts to communicate within a rigid system."

I am so uninspired by the art world right now.

(The sound of wind beating against parentheses)

The wind is blowing very hard tonight.

and btw, i'll be blogging from my work travel blog for the next nine days. see you later.
www.pencilpaperkeyboarderaser.blogspot.com

Laura

I tried writing a letter to my roommate when we moved out last October. I found a draft on my computer tonight...and I can't finish it. This letter...I don't think...needs an ending or a conclusion. I think now; that must be the whole point.



February, 2006, before we actually moved in together, I attended a birthday dinner for your sister. As we sat next to eachother, sharing Indian cuisine ,I was blown away…drained, in fact, by your energy. By the end of the night I barely had anything to say; you seemed to suck the air I could expend for words like a vacuum…and churn it into a conversation of your own. You had the most beautiful blue eyeshadow on.

69 was our address and it couldn’t fit us more perfectly. A Taurus and a Scorpio, the builder, the destroyer, a girl who tries to crunch a beauty routine into twenty minutes a day and a girl who spends hours in front of a mirror before any given event…I kept my door closed, and you were not afraid to open it. I tried to keep my possessions to myself…you did not hestitate to grab my dishes and silverware, mixing it in with your own. We are very different people, yet somehow our paths in life seemed to mirror one another. As I write this, I want you to know that I wouldn’t change one thing that we experienced in the past year and a half.

We cried like babies, laughed like little girls and shared uncomfortable moments that made me realize that you have to get messy in order for anything in this world to have meaning...that you have to deal with dirt in order to learn what it means to be a woman. We're both still learning.

The night we moved out of the apartment you said something as we stood in the doorway…looking down an empty hallway…into an empty kitchen where you used to share your home-cooked meals with me,

“When we moved in here, it was like we both wanted so badly to be something.”

I'M OBSESSED!

I can't stop watching this video!!! The music, the "artistic" placement of the food bowls, those greedy little kittens....and again...THE MUSIC!

Dear Juke,

I have no regrets, I still think you are beautiful...I still look fondly upon the day my man signed for your package...and i squealed as I took you out of the box and held you in my hands. You are so tiny and neat. I like the...idea of you...but alas I have realized you are not the phone for me...and back to the store you must go.

Sigh,
L.

This is the second to last thing I entered in my sketchbook:



And this is the last:



That had to have been a month ago...COME ON! Time to move on...hopefully posting these will force me to doodle some more.